


Forgive Me, Brother

by Thimblerig



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode Tag, Episode: s01e01 Friends and Enemies, Episode: s01e03 Commodities, Episode: s01e04 The Good Soldier, Episode: s01e05 The Homecoming, Episode: s02e01 Keep Your Friends Close, Episode: s02e06 Through a Glass Darkly, Episode: s02e10 Trial and Punishment, Episode: s03e02 The Hunger, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Missing Scene, MuskiesRewatch, Post Traumatic Stress, Religion, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-23
Updated: 2019-03-20
Packaged: 2019-04-26 19:48:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 5,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14409354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thimblerig/pseuds/Thimblerig
Summary: Quiet moments, two brothers talking: what passes between them.





	1. 1.01 a woman who is dead; a woman who is not (Athos & Aramis)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Anathema Device (notowned)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/notowned/gifts), [Lady_Neve](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Neve/gifts), [Barbara69](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Barbara69/gifts).



> For Anathema Device: "I want post nearly executed athos talking to aramis"
> 
> I might do more quiet heart-to-hearts, so I'm leaving the chapter count open.

Catholic by use and not avocation, Athos seldom treads the halls of Saint-Sulpice. It is quiet on a Wednesday morning, however, and his boots echo through the nave as he passes a pew where, he knows, Aramis and Porthos like to sit when they fish for wealthy lovers, another where he’d once arrested two women for knife-fighting over seats, into a narrow corridor that laps the high dome of the apse and out into one of the little side-chapels.  
  
A silent man kneels in front of the candle-lit altar, his sword and guns put aside for the hour.  
  
Aramis does not lift his tousled head. “Are you sorry we came in time?”  
  
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”  
  
“Let no lies stand between us, Athos.”  
  
Athos unbuckles his weapons belt. _Shoot, damn you!_ he’d screamed to the firing squad, a night of considering his sins about to end in the sharp physical release of execution. “Shove over,” he says pettishly, and nudges Aramis with his armoured shoulder until the man makes room at the _prie-dieu._ Kneeling awkwardly on the padded prayer bench Athos says, looking at nothing, “Forgive me, brother, for I have sinned.”  
  
Aramis raises his head, but he watches only the altar, the candles, the cross. “How have you sinned, my brother?”  
  
Athos feels the warmth of his friend at his side. “I have wished for an early death, uncaring of the pain it would cause. I have prayed for entrance into Hell if only I might see -” The breath escapes him with a sigh. “I meant to die unshriven, Aramis.” Eccentric though his friend’s theology can sometimes be, Athos knows he would not approve.  
  
Aramis’ dark eyes slide to the side, watching him. “Was it _the woman_ you wished to see in Hell?” he asks gently, curiously.  
  
_She was my wife, my Anne, she killed - she was everything to me -_ the words die inside him, sinking like a scrap of lead in the dark waters of a well. But that is a secret and not a lie, and so there is peace between them.  
  
After a time Aramis’ eyes leave him and the man bows his head, a fractious, erratic, _rapid_ man sunk now into the stillness of silent prayer. There is a remoteness to him in these moments, a sense that if touched he will disappear. Athos nudges him again, from cussedness.  
  
_“Don’t_ pray for Adéle’s return,” he says.  
  
“I’m not,” says Aramis, somewhat unconvincingly, “only that she is happy.”  
  
“Aramis…”  
  
“The beating of lovers has never been the Cardinal’s vice,” Aramis says, watching the altar again. “Adéle made her choice. So. Let her be happy.”  
  
_“Aramis…”_  
  
“Let her be happy,” Aramis repeats. His hand comes up and he wipes briefly, angrily, at one eye then the other. “Damn it,” he swears.  
  
Athos cups the back of Aramis’ neck with his hand and squeezes lightly. Even through the stiff leather, he feels the tension in his friend ease. “All shall be well,” he says softly, “and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well…”  
  
It is a lie, but they let it stand.


	2. 1.03 jinx (Porthos & Athos)

Porthos is fretful, grumbling like a bear in early spring as the wound in his shoulder pains him. He should sleep, and he will, but for now he turns and shifts and kicks out in the close, dark inn room.

Athos hides his wince in another beaker of wine, poured by feel in the darkness. The side of his face still aches, a deep structural pain and a bright singe of scorched skin. Whatever his wife Anne had become, fire and grief and rage and all that, strength was a part of her now, also.

“I want some light,” says Porthos.

“Go to sleep.”

 _“Light,”_ Porthos orders, deep and commanding.

Athos swears under his breath, and rummages through his gear in the dark. He finds his tinderbox and sets up a little pile of wood shavings in the dish of the candleholder, primes it with a pinch of gunpowder, and strikes sparks. In the flare of fire from the newly lit candle he sees Porthos curled awkwardly on his side watching him, eyes bright. Fever?

Athos tests his forehead - warm but not overly so - and slides his hand down the side of his face and neck, through the vent of his shirt and over the meat of his shoulder. The skin near the axe wound is, again, hot but not overly so. Porthos’ eyes stay on his face.

“Mother hen,” he says.

“Don’t make me punch you again.” Athos settles back in the only chair, refills his cup.

“I knew it.” Porthos’ eyes brighten even more: half malice and half mirth. Athos resigns himself to several crushing falls at wrestling practice when the man is healed. Porthos’ retributions tend to be swift and definitive.

Aramis’ corrections, on the other hand, favour… poetry.

And so Athos bides with Porthos another night while Aramis and the Gascon boy roam Le Havre, consulting with the Spanish and waiting for Bonnaire, bides and tends the man in his injury.

 _Don’t you care about Porthos?_ He drinks again.

“Don’t you care about me?” Porthos says plaintively.

Athos jerks. The wine slops, thin and vinegary, over the translucent lip of the horn cup and soaks Athos’ sleeve.

“Well you’ve spilled it now,” Porthos mourns. He beckons imperiously to Athos, until the man returns to his bedside and crouches near, one knee to the floorboard. His own hand reaches, to hook Athos’ neck and draw him close, then drifts to lie against his face, one thumb resting lightly on the swelling of the bruise. “That was some door you walked into.”

Athos says nothing, mouth dry.

“Jinx,” Porthos whispers, eyes bright in the dimness.

“Yes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a game, where people unexpectedly say the same thing at the same time - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jinx_(children%27s_game) - Porthos is stretching a bit and I hope you don't mind. Also, a jinx for bad luck and all that. 
> 
> Poor, poor Athos. Not having a good night.


	3. 1.04 a fork in the road (Athos & Aramis)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's for Lady Neve, for an old prompt: _I loved your line where Athos asked in desperation what he could do to keep Aramis. I would love a continuation of this private conversation under stressful conditions ending with Aramis promising to stay with Athos._
> 
> Not quite what she asked for, but I hope it finds some merit in her eyes.

“Don’t take the transfer,” Athos tells Aramis, striding into the little chapel.  
  
A bubbling laugh escapes the marksman, who once more kneels facing the altar. One booted toe taps; the sour smell of wine cuts through the past richness of incense. “D’Essart’s Guards are a fine body of men,” Aramis says lightly, “about to seek healthful exercise on the border. I can practice my combat skills _and_ my Spanish.”  
  
“I said _don’t,”_ Athos snaps. It works sometimes, with Aramis, an insistent command - something to focus on, like a prayer, or a target, or a friend in danger.  
  
But instead: “I think you’ll find,” Aramis answers primly, “that if I take the transfer then your orders no longer apply.” He shifts his weight on the kneeling bench. “How did you find out, anyway?”  
  
“D’Essart’s clerk. He talks when he’s drunk.”  
  
“Jean-Jacques is a dear little man. A demon with a _main-gauche,_ also - you should have seen him slitting throats at the border skirmish in ‘26… I wouldn’t be among strangers if that’s what worries you.”  
  
It’s not. Aramis has served in the army near a decade, and has always practiced affability. He has a gift for ready acquaintance and few regiments would be wholly alien to him.  
  
“They aren’t the Musketeers, Aramis.”  
  
“Well, no.”  
  
Athos’ stomach clenches. But there is space on the _prie-dieu._ Aramis has set himself to one side, where a friend might kneel next to him and talk: this conversation is not over. He takes his place, his leathers creaking as he kneels, his sword an awkward bulk.  
  
“Is it a trust issue?” Athos asks. _I don’t believe Treville is guilty,_ he’d told Aramis not long ago, _and I never will._  
  
Aramis turns his head amiably. The black eye from a random, unexpectedly savage brawl the night before is still swollen shut, a livid, purplish red. “I don’t think so? You did warn me, about the… end of the road.”  
  
“I don’t… I didn’t see _that.”_  
  
_The Captain is the finest man I've ever met, and when it comes down to it, I'd rather be on his side._  
  
“You warned me. You always thought I was… soft… on Marsac. But if I can respect Marsac’s reasons for walking on, I must respect yours, also.”  
  
Athos thinks Aramis believes it, or is trying to.  
  
_There’s no ‘we’ here._  
  
He shudders and looks down.  
  
“I hope you understand mine,” Aramis says, a wry note in his voice. His fingers move again, a restless tap on the arm-rest of the _prie-dieu_  where Athos is accustomed to see serenity. Unbidden he covers Aramis’ hand with his own and Aramis stiffens, tension in the muscles of his arm as if he chooses, every second, not to pull away from a contact that is just a little more than he can manage.  
  
But he stays.  
  
“You’ve talked to Treville?” Athos says desperately. “He would give you leave if you asked for it, surely?”  
  
A breath that is half a sob catches in Aramis’ throat. “He is… _gentle._ And I can’t. He. The stain on the armory floor -” His hand curls into a fist under Athos’ fingers. “I had peace,” he tells Athos. “After Marsac died there was peace, like a drop of rain on an eyelash, clean and clear. Then God blinked, and here I am.”  
  
“A good soldier,” Athos rasps.  
  
“Filled with a diabolic energy,” Aramis corrects. “If drink will not wash it, and incense will not transform it, perhaps a little _blood_ will drown it.”  
  
_“You’ll die.”_  
  
“Not so.”  
  
“Inside, Aramis. Inside you’ll die.”  
  
That earns him a sharp look. Athos capitalises on it, sliding one hand into his friend’s hair and tugging lightly - Aramis’ uninjured eye widens. “Please,” whispers Athos. “Don’t leave us like this. _Please.”_  
  
Aramis’ eye drops, and still Athos feels the tension thrumming in him.  
  
“Until Porthos’ birthday, at least,” Aramis concedes. “I won’t make any decisions until after we’ve seen Porthos through his big day. Alright?”  
  
It is a delaying action only: an equivocation. “Alright,” Athos says.  


	4. 2.06 childish things (Athos & Aramis)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still going hard with the Athos & Aramis H/C. Um. Not like I have a type or anything...
> 
> This one's for Barbara69

Aramis was, praise God, in a pliant mood this hour, six feet of cheerful lethality turned biddable as a hand-reared lamb. And as distractible.

“Hold still,” Athos chided, wielding iron tweezers like a weapon of war directed at the blood-clotted mess that was Aramis’ hair. Aramis’ head turned, tracking the flight of a bird through the high infirmary window. Athos cursed between his teeth, gripped the top of the man's head with his free hand, reached… he pulled out a chip of broken glass, half brightness and half blood, and dropped it with a tiny splash into an enamelled basin half full of water.

“Ow,” said Aramis pointedly.

“It wouldn't hurt if you held still.”

“Lies.”

“Hm.” But the marksman sat as quietly as he could on the infirmary table, wearing nothing but his sweat-stained shirt. The long gash on his thigh was stitched and wrapped, a brilliant stain of red already seeping through the white bandage.  
  
“I liked your wife, at Marmion’s Fortress,” he said after a while. “The woman has grit.”  
  
Athos jerked. The tweezers lost their grip on a shard; it shifted but stayed dug into the bloody scalp and Aramis hissed. “That’s your fault,” he told Aramis bluntly.  
  
“Well, she does,” Aramis defended.  
  
“Don’t distract me.”  
  
“Yes, sir. Do I get a honeycake when you’re done?”  
  
“You giant baby.” Athos got the miserable thing out on the third try.

 _You have my respect,_ he'd said to Anne, the words sincere, if gruff. She had been magnificent: tough, practical, unflagging. Nothing like his young wife, when he had loved simply and as unknowing as a child, adoring the image he had of her all bound up in a pretty frame.

 _Once upon a time that might have been important to me,_ she'd replied with a cold twist to her lips, levinbolts dancing in her pale eyes, and she'd strode off in her borrowed Musketeer clothing - still magnificent, transforming spite and anger into the workings of a storm contained in female flesh. He'd felt such a craving, then, to feel the lash of the wind and rain, and shame for it, walking stiff-legged back to his duties.

Aramis kicked one bare foot. “If you get a move on, I can take another look at Porthos’ shoulder.”  
  
“D’Artagnan is looking after him. In the meantime, Aramis, you talk too much.” Athos squinted, sighed, and sponged at another clot of blood over a long, still-bleeding cut. He sighed again. “I’ll get the scissors.”  
  
“Don’t touch my hair!” Aramis said in alarm.  
  
“You need. Stitches.” Athos caught his friend’s shoulder and shoved him back down on the table. He growled. Then, “Just a little around the edges… No, sit, just a little to get the stitches in, _Jesu,_ Aramis, be still, what a vain little thing you are, if you don’t settle I really will cut it...” In desperation he said, “What would Her Majesty think, to see you so puerile?” Aramis froze and Athos swore silently to himself. But his friend held still, head drooping, and did not complain as Athos clipped and stitched, though it hurt him. Athos covered Aramis in a blanket, after, for warmth, and let him lie down on his side, because the fatigue was starting to bite. He let the man rest his head on his lap also. It was only practical: he fidgeted less.  
  
Anne used to sit like this. In the long summer evenings when the fading light cast itself _just so_ through the long windows of his withdrawing room, when it was just the two of them, she would let him rest and stroke his hair, and the riotous thoughts would slow down and he could be at peace.  
  
That woman never existed.  
  
He feathered his fingers across Aramis’ temple. The man’s hair was a tangled mare’s nest - he combed through it awkwardly.  
  
_“More_ glass?” Aramis said plaintively. “I pray you Athos, have mercy, please do not cut off my hair.”  
  
“I won’t,” Athos murmured.  
  
Aramis stirred. “Porthos’ shoulder...”  
  
“... Will be well enough. They sent us ice, from the palace.”  
  
“Well then. D'Artagnan has good hands,” Aramis muttered drowsily. Then, “I held my son today,” he confided.

“He’s not your son,” Athos answered, quiet but firm. Aramis cringed under his hands. Athos hissed and pulled them away. “He's _not,”_ he continued, more regretful.

A sigh escaped the injured man. “I know. I'm trying, Athos.”

“I would give him to you if I could,” said Athos, startling himself with the honesty. “But it's -”  
  
“Treason. Yes. I'm trying to be good.” Aramis shifted restlessly and another shard of broken glass revealed itself. Athos picked it out silently.  
  
Childish dreams, Anne and the Queen, that's all they were. It were so much better to put them away and be sensible men.  
  
Athos smoothed Aramis’ damp hair.  
  
“Sleep well.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> // I borrowed a little imagery from 1 Corinthians 13, the same chapter where the line “through a glass darkly” comes from. Link here: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Corinthians+13&version=KJV
> 
> There's some gorgeous poetry in it, which this chapter doesn't really do justice to.


	5. 1.05 dreams of glory; dreams of home (Porthos & d'Artagnan)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Time to give the sanguine and choleric members of our ensemble some more time.

“You ever miss farming?”

Porthos leaned back against the wall of the booth where they were sitting, knees out, elbows wide, a  _ presence _ in reinforced leather armour and a big grin. His eyes were lazy slits.   
  
“Nah,” d'Artagnan answered. “It's hard graft: up before the sun, in when it's dark, always an eye on the weather and taxes take the best of everything. It's dirty.”   
  
Across the riotous tavern Aramis draped himself elegantly under a wax-encrusted, shining candelabra, while Athos, saturnine, bespoke food from a russet-haired proprietress. Her heavy braids swung over her creamy shoulders as she spoke to Athos, eyes always shifting to the other man.

“You sayin’ Musketeering is easy?” Porthos asked.

“It's a different kind of hard,” d'Artagnan answered. “If I never see another sheep...” he vowed, and drank deep from his wooden cup.   
  
“Not going back then.”   
  
“There’s an overseer knows more than I ever will and a feckless cousin keeping the house warm. They don’t need me.” D’Artagnan’s eyes glinted. “Time to pursue my dreams of arms and glory.” He lifted the cup and let Porthos tap it with his own. They drained their cups.    
  
“It wasn’t all bad,” d’Artagnan said meditatively. “The summer mornings with the larks striking across the sky and all the smell of the damp grass… My father swinging his scythe, slow and easy  - no effort at all, it looked like, but he finished his row before any of the laborers. The fishing - Gascony has the best fish in all the world, all you get in Paris is proper  _ rubbish, _ what I’d give for a decent lamprey…” He shrugged. “But I’m looking for something  _ here.” _ His eyes slid back to Porthos. “You know how it is.” He hesitated, the prospect of  _ feelings _ hanging in the air like a loaded pistol. “What do you miss?”   
  
“The piles of shit in the street.” Porthos laughed shortly. “Burning it in winter to keep warm, and sleeping in piles of kids when that wasn’t enough, holding ourselves together against the cold. Fightin’, always  _ fighting _ to look even halfway poor. The King’s Hall, rags and tatters and stolen gilt… What’s to miss?”   
  
“What else?” d’Artagnan asked. “The girl with the feathers. She seemed like she liked you.”   
  
“That’s Queen Flea to you.” Porthos looked down at his empty cup. “I wish she’d come with me. But she loves it there.”   
  
“The love of your life?”   
  
“Nah. Maybe. Who knows?” A swirl in the crowd bubbled up, a trio of men toasting a fancy-woman in the corner. She downed a long tankard and they clapped her on the back. Cheeks flushed, she gestured peremptorily for another.   
  
In the silence as she drank, “There was a man once good as a brother to me, died today,” Porthos admitted, eyes haunted. As d'Artagnan moved he seized the boy’s wrist, hard enough to bruise. “Aramis isn't ever finding out that last.”   
  
The Gascon's eyes widened. “The one at the end. Who was going to stab you in the back. Aramis…”   
  
“... saved my life,” Porthos said grimly. “He saved my life and that's what's important.”   
  
D'Artagnan hesitated, agonised - the  _ feelings, _ the loaded pistol, pointing straight at his forehead now. “Another drink,” he mumbled.   
  
Porthos released him, sitting back and grinning. “Your treat, Baby Musketeer.”  
  
D'Artagnan eyed him warily as he held out two fingers to the barmaid. “I’ll get my pauldron yet,  _ friend, _ just you watch.”   
  
Porthos laughed, low but rich. “I’ll cheer you on, Baby.” He reached out a broad hand and scruffed at d’Artagnan’s loose black hair.   
  
“What are we talking about?” Aramis asked, appearing behind Porthos’s shoulder with an enormous dish of roasted partridge.   
  
“D’Artagnan’s buying next round,” Porthos told him, very cheerfully.   
  
“Well done,” said Athos.


	6. 2.01 to eat a heart in the marketplace (Constance & Queen Anne)

_I have known you as many things, Constance - but never as a coward._

D'Artagnan's words rang in her ears as Constance walked back to the palace in borrowed court dress and her new-curled hair flowing around her shoulders. The fashion this month was for shawls (fine, lace) and the silky drape of it was something of a comfort, a reminder of a childish urge to bury herself in blankets when her parents were fighting, when her mother was getting sicker.

She'd doff it soon enough, as the tides of court dress shifted, all of the inhabitants of the palace demonstrating just how _easy_ it was for them to buy new fabric and make up something grand. (It wasn't, really. As a mercer’s wife, she had some awareness of how much some of them aristos fought to keep themselves looking _proper._ )

A court page trotted solemnly behind her, and an assigned guard cleared her way through the streets as if she were some fine lady, as if she hadn't spent a hurried hour rehemming a skirt, with her ribs crimped by boning that wasn't ever going to sit quite right. Constance wasn't any kind of romantic heroine. Was she secretly of noble birth, fated to re-encounter a marvellous family through an intricate plot and a curious trinket? Was she due the kneeling and poetry and love confessions of courtly love? Would a knight, did she bid him take himself off, kiss her hand and swear to love her chastely but truly despite all obstacles? Really: no. _I have known you as many things, Constance - but never as a coward._ Did romantic heroines ever want to give someone a good, hard, _smack?_

She mused over that last with a reluctantly gleeful relish that tided her through a miserable half hour threading her way through the mysteries of the royal apartments. Her page was little help - young Gérard was near as new as she was, and painfully shy - and her borrowed guard peeled off without a word to an internal barracks filled with raucous laughter and the smell of drink.

 _Romantic heroines_ did not get lost in their first week on the job.

She swept past the tittering of senior ladies-in-waiting informing her that, no, actually the Queen wasn't in her receiving room any longer, no, she'd retired half an hour ago and if Constance had not been so late, so inattentive to the schedule, she'd know that. Did she perhaps have a lover in town, that made her tarry so?

 _Ha!_ Constance barked in laughter, and made quite sure to compliment Comtesse Avignon’s dress (which had near-invisible pin marks where it had been made over) and her glossy hair (dyed). She wasn't proud of that, after. _Romantic heroines_ weren't that petty, surely? They were full of grander passions, great loves and angers like an engulfing storm, and a loyalty far greater than one frail body could contain...

In the gorgeous bedroom, the Queen sat upright in her enormous bed, a pale braid of hair falling over a fine billowing chemise. There were shadows under her eyes but she smiled brightly, serenely, as a bundle of her tiny son in swaddling was taken away by the governess. It was time for the little one's supper, Constance imagined, latched firmly to the breast of a plump wet nurse with wide shoulders and Norman-fair colouring, or perhaps the tiny red-head. Either way, it wasn't fit for a Queen to feed her own baby. Despite herself, Constance’s eyes flicked to the damp patches in Her Majesty’s chemise where her milk was still letting down. Her own breasts ached in sympathy.

“I'm just so tired, right now,” the Queen confessed. She cut through Constance’s hurried apology for lateness, shuffling it away so neatly that it need never make a woman blush in remembrance. She was a woman of unruffled courtesy, and listened gravely to Constance’s news of de Foix's decline. Then she smiled at Constance, tired but real. “I fear I have not given you an easy job,” she added ruefully, lowering her eyes.

Constance grinned, forgetting her etiquette in the moment. “I'm a quick study, Your Majesty.”

“Please call me Anne,” she whispered, then looked up, startled at herself. “When we're alone. If you like that is.” The Queen bit her lip.

Constance nodded warily. “Yes, Your Majesty.”

The Queen giggled. “As you like.” Her smile dropped. “But it really isn't going to be easy, or… safe… being close to me and it never will be. And I am sorry I was not more honest at the start. If you feel you'd rather not stay, then...”

“I'm not leaving, not for anything!” Constance said, startled.

It could have been many things, that moment. If Constance had been a _romantic heroine_ no doubt there would have been a flowery speech and a lot of kneeling. But there it was, Constance was dreadfully common. And she was looking at a tired woman with her insides still sore from childbirth and missing her son, a woman who looked desperately in need of a hug.

“I'm not going _anywhere.”_

It could have been a moment stately and grand. But all it was, really, was that time Anne offered her hand, and Constance took it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title comes from _Much Ado About Nothing._


	7. 3.02 choices (Porthos & Clementine)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> // This... isn't a happy chapter, sorry.

You’re a big man: you’ve got a good Loom. Since you got your first solid meal in the baggage train of a troop heading out to Montauban, since you started getting _wide_ as well as _tall,_ imposing has been a part of your being. (It wasn’t long before you were infantry; half a breath before you were leading charges.)  
  
Most times you pull it back. There’s a time and place for everything, and it’s better to show the world the disciplined soldier, the gentleman, the _gentle_ man that you are, than a walking threat. Most times. Most places.  But now, in a flea-ridden room of a fall-down house in the piss-hole that is Saint Antoine, you plant your feet, keep your arms still at your sides, and roar.  
  
The woman - Clementine, was it? - just stands there on the other side of the filthy room, refusing to be cowed. Her pale eyes are cool, though worn hands clench into fists half-hidden in her embroidered apron and she refuses to look at the stash of gimcrack jewels and gilt chains come fallen out of a crack in the wall. Neither of you waste time pretending its really hers.  
  
“‘There’s always a choice’,” she says back, low and fierce. “You’ve got choices, a strong healthy man like you, you can find work anywhere, _I’ve_ got children to feed and sick to tend and none of that, _none of that_ is coming out of this city’s ‘charity’.”  
  
(Shameless, that’s what she is.)  
  
“Do you think they’re cruel to you now?” you drop your voice a little, not that you care who hears. “Do you think they talk like you’re dirt underfoot and blame you for everything when they only _think_ you’re thieves? Imagine what it’ll be like _when they can prove it._ When they can name _dates,_ and times, and ‘honest’ businessmen robbed, oh dear, oh my.  
  
“You have no idea how bad it can get,” you tell her.  
  
Slowly, controlled, you pick up the cache of jewellery (not even _good_ jewellery, it’s tat) and hold out your other hand, fingers spread wide. “The rest,” you tell her, uncompromising.  
  
_Now_ she’s upset, her eyes bright with tears unless it’s just more anger. You stare at her (you’ve stared down a charge of pikemen; you’ve stared down Richelieu). Achingly slowly, she retrieves a small lump wrapped in a handkerchief from her pocket and drops it, still warm, in your hand. Her jaw clenches: definitely anger.  
  
You bundle it all together, then use a wobbly chair to lift yourself to the top of the doorway, and lever out a loose brick (they never check the inner lintel) to stow the bundle inside. You drop to the floor lightly - there’s no time here, there’s a hundred hundred places a rookery like Saint Antoine might hide the grain, and only a handful you could pretend not to see.  
  
But you look back at her one more time, a middle-aged woman with tears in her eyes (you know where they came from).  
  
“Don’t let me _ever_ catch you with stolen property _again,”_ you hiss to Clementine.  
  
(And you never do, there’s that.)


	8. 2.10 trapped (Milady de Winter & Catherine de Garouville)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> __  
> “I'm not your confessor but I can help you meet God...”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honestly, this is _really_ not a cheerful chapter. No happiness, in this place.
> 
> It just kept bugging my brain, one final showdown.

  
“Bless me, father, for I have sinned,” the hooded woman said fervently, crossing herself in the darkness.

“I'm not your confessor but I can help you meet God...”

The voice in the confessional booth was a woman's: low, and dark, and supple as a fox sneaking up to a henhouse. Catherine de Garouville whirled in shock. Through the screen she saw  _ the woman, _ Anne, lips blood red, eyes poison green, a smirk disfiguring her alabaster cheeks. “Tch,” she cautioned, as Catherine's hands moved, “I've a pistol trained on you, of course. Upset me and you'll die slowly, from a wound in the gut.” Her eyelashes dipped and her cat eyes sparkled with amusement. It will be the infection that takes you, in the end,” she mused, “all hot and bothered, the rot in your belly dragging you down… it isn't pretty at all. Don't you want to be  _ pretty?” _ she cooed.   
  
_ “You!” _ Catherine hissed.

“What appalls me the most is the waste,” Anne said dispassionately. “Look at you - you're bright enough; your looks are passable; you've  _ amply _ demonstrated cunning and drive. When I knew you at Pinon, I never thought you'd move past catty remarks and perhaps a half-hearted attempt at poisoning, you were that insipid, but here you are. Did you teach yourself to shoot?” she inquired.

“Thomas,” Catherine answered, throat tight with rage.

“Hmm. He  _ was _ good with his hands, I'll say that for him. A certain low cunning also, I'll grant. It's a pity he's dead,  _ mademoiselle,  _ for the pair of you were a better match than you realised.”

“And you killed him!” Catherine snapped. “You couldn't  _ help _ yourself, could you? You're nothing but a stoat, following your nature, a creature from the filth and dirt -”

“And now you're getting boring,”  _ the woman _ yawned. “But that's alright,” she said generously, “I forgive you.”

Catherine drew in her breath, outraged, the boning of her shabby bodice tight against her ribs.

_ The woman  _ clicked her tongue. “I'm going away,” she added, her voice shading into hope, the thought of something  _ better _ to look forward to. “It doesn't matter to you where. But I'm scraping the dust of Paris and Pinon off my feet… So I'm willing to let this one slide. You may have both.”

“Athos won't ever follow you.”

“We shall see.” But Catherine heard the waver of doubt rocking the underpinnings of Anne's confident drawl. There'd always been something there, even when she was a new bride, dewy-eyed and demure, a shimmer of not-quite-rightness, a whiff of something sordid. It was Athos’ fault that he'd been blind to it… 

“I would have been an honest wife,” Anne said harshly.

“Ha!”

“I would have  _ tried. _ If not for you and Thomas...”

“You'll never leave it behind,” Catherine said, “the smell of what you've done.”

“God can forgive anything, they say.”

“Not for such as you.”

“And you wasted your potential, dear, clinging to your rags, and your old house, and your rage. A pretty woman who doesn't mind killing? You could have gone far with the right patron. But you trapped yourself. It sickens me to look at you.”

_ “Creature of darkness!”  _ Catherine shrieked.

The door of the confessional booth slammed open.

In the stillness of the night, one veiled woman swept like a storm through the church.

And there was silence.


End file.
